Taking BART to work gives one a lot of time to think -- about the landscape one passes, fellow passengers, self.  Early in the morning, before dawn, the landscape is mostly streetlights, prompting thoughts of warm beds and sleep-tousled heads, of order, and of what lurks in the dark.  Frequently one just gazes out into the dark, with only the arrival at a station waking one from the fugue state into which it is so easy to fall.

Half an hour on, headlights on the roads below tell of a waking world and others on their way to work.  The BART car begins to fill: students, office workers, construction workers, those whose occupation is impossible to guess from their clothes, all types, all going somewhere.  Those who enter with friends carry on conversations started long before.  Those entering alone -- most -- are quiet, self-contained, with even their expressions giving away nothing.  BART cars are quiet places; even those conversations are not loud, each trying not to trespass on another's space, even aurally.  We are together in our solitude.